The disclosure relates to glass articles exhibiting improved fracture performance, and more particularly to glass articles exhibiting improved fracture patterns and dicing behavior.
Consumer electronics devices, including handheld devices such as smart phones, tablets, electronic-book readers and laptops often incorporate chemically strengthened glass articles for use as cover glass. As cover glass is directly bonded to a substrate like a touch-panel, display or other structures, when strengthened glass articles fracture, such articles may eject small fragments or particles from the free surface due to the stored energy created by a combination of surface compressive stresses and tensile stresses beneath the surfaces of the glass. As used herein, the term fracture includes cracking and/or the formation of cracks. These small fragments are a potential concern to the device user, especially when fracture occurs in a delayed manner close to the users face (i.e. eyes and ears), and when the user continues to use and touch the fractured surface and is, thus, susceptible to minor cuts or abrasions, especially when crack distances are relatively long and fragments with sharp corners and edges are present.
Accordingly, there is a need for glass articles that exhibit a modified fragmentation behavior so that when such articles fracture, they exhibit an enhanced dicing behavior, such as, for example, a dicing effect generating short crack lengths and fewer ejected particles. Moreover, there is also a need for glass articles that, when fractured, eject fewer fragments and fragments with less kinetic energy and momentum.